A New Dawn
by omgxitsxme
Summary: A hero's work is never done. As much as we wish it weren't true, where there is light, there will always be darkness SoKai RikuOC
1. The Letter

_Sora,_

_ Hoping all is well on the island. I'm sure you've been enjoying your time off, but as you must know, a hero's work is never done. As much as we wish it weren't true, where there is light, there will always be darkness. I've come across a new world in my travels. It's mountainous, yet beachy, and there is also a forest in the land. The water is the world is so clear, it looks as if the whole world is floating. There is also a large castle. I woke up in a room in the castle, and there was a girl there with me. She told me of a group of children from the land, all with markings, who had left some time before I arrived. The world is being swallowed up by the darkness, and the crew left to find a way to stop it. I need you to go find this girl, she is the last of the marked, and meet me in Radiant Garden with her. I will explain to you more then, for any more detail may be dangerous. _

_ Until then,_

_ King Mickey _


	2. Clearwater

We arrived in what seemed to be what the king had told us of in his letter. We were dumped out on the shore of the land, luckily for us, where there was sand. We could have landed anywhere else, the mountains to the left of us, the woods that began right at the bottom of the mountain, or even in the castle, where who knows what was waiting for us. The King had been spot on with everything, aside from the consistency of the water. He had said that the water was so clean and pure, that it looked as if the land were floating. That wasn't the case here. The water looked like that of a swamp, it was a very dark color, and it looked as if you were to go in for a swim, it would just swallow you up. I took in a whiff of the air and began gagging. Not only did the water look like a swamp, but it smelt like one too.

I heard Kairi laughing at me from my right, and saw that she had plugged her nose after seeing my reaction. I stuck my tongue out at her, which just caused her to laugh even more. Riku sighed from my other side and we both turned our attention to him.

"There doesn't seem to be another soul anywhere near here," he said, turning his attention to the woods "and that castle looks like it could be miles away."

"Yeesh, Riku. Since when did you become such a complainer," Kairi said through her plugged nose. Riku rolled his eyes at Kairi, and I couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. Riku punched me in the arm in response and turned on his heel.

"Whatever let's get-" Riku cut himself off causing Kairi and I to turn around and see something we hadn't seen in months. A heartless. All three of us summoned our weapons, although the creature was one of the weak ones, the little black shadow with the big yellow eyes and antennae. "Don't even waste your effort, guys," Riku said, a sly smile showing on his face, "I got this one." Riku raised his weapon to attack the creature, as its eyes grew bigger, if even possible.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" A new voice called out. Before any of us could even respond, Riku was flung to the ground by a blur and was tumbling down to the water. As soon as the figure was on Riku, it was off him even faster and over by the heartless. "There, there, it's okay. I won't let anyone hurt you." The figure turned out to be a girl, and the girl was now… consoling the heartless. "It's okay; they didn't hurt you, did they? See I promised, I'd never let anyone hurt you." This had to be one of the strangest things I'd ever witnessed.

"Hey, what's the big idea?!" Riku called from where he was standing at the edge of the water. The girl stiffened, but didn't turn her attention away from the creature.

"What do you mean 'what's the big idea,'" she spat back. "You know the law, you're not allowed to cause harm to anything that hasn't caused harm to you. How else would we keep everyone here sane? Plus, the beach is totally dangerous, so I don't know what the three of you think you're even doing here to begin with." The girl finally stood from where she was with the heartless and finally took a look at us. It was then that we actually saw what she looked like. She was extremely pale, had eyes that were so light blue that they were almost translucent, and had long, wavy, light brown hair. She was about as tall as Kairi, and maybe even skinnier if it were possible. When I took in her size, I found it shocking that she had been able to knock over Riku. She wore a black tank top that stopped around where her belly button was. Where her shirt stopped, a white skirt started where the front stopped mid-thigh, while that back continued down to the back of her ankles. On her feet she wore black lace up boots. She stood there with her arms crossed, lips pursed, and eyes slit as she took in all three of us. Her slit eyes just popped open as seemed to notice something.

"Ohmygosh," she let out in barely a whisper, "you three are totally from another world." All three of us jumped back at her accusation. We couldn't let her know we were from somewhere else, it was against the order of the worlds.

"We uh- we-we," I managed to mutter out trying to look for an excuse.

"Oh, don't even bother about trying to come up with an excuse, I know all about the other worlds!" She let out with a laugh. I let out a little laugh with her, and scratched the back of my head. That was strange; we'd never met anyone who had openly told us they knew about the different worlds. "I'm Cadance, by the way, and this little fella here," she said, gesturing to the heartless as it crawled up her body and sat on top of her head, "is Gyzmo."

"You named a heartless?" Riku spat out at Cadance. She tilted her head to the left, causing 'Gyzmo' to lose his balance, but quickly regain it.

"Heartless?" she said, confusion clear in her eyes. She picked him up from her head and had him look her in the eyes. She smiled immediately. "I don't think they're heartless, maybe just a little misunderstood." The creature did a little dance, and made her smile grow wider.

"No, I don't think you understand-"

"No, you don't understand. Gyzmo's never done anything to hurt me, and he would never hurt you unless you started it. I don't believe he did anything to you, being that you don't have a scratch on your pretty little face." She snapped back at Riku. "I know you three aren't from around here, but that doesn't give you permission to go around breaking our laws. Now be careful before someone who doesn't know about the worlds finds you and you three cause some real problems." Cadance picked up Gyzmo and turned on her heals then stormed off the beach and into the woods.

"Wait!" Kairi called out, running after Cadance.

"Kairi! Where are you goin'?!" I called running after Kairi. I heard Riku groan from behind me. No doubt, he'd be caught up in a matter of moments.

"What a strange girl, naming a heartless," Riku said to me as he caught up by my side, continuing to run.

"Maybe she gets lonely," I was just able to breathe out. We ran in silence for the remainder of our time. Running over twigs, dodging tree trunks, I think something had even thrown an acorn at me.

"Riku! Sora!" Kairi called from up farther. She was standing next to a trunk of a large tree. She was walking around the entire base, examining it everywhere, knocking on the wood.

"Kairi, what are you doing?" I asked, stopping my running, and putting my hands behind head. Kairi looked up from where she was examining the tree.

"She was running and then she just like… disappeared into the tree." Kairi said, obviously confused.

"I don't see why it's important that we find her," Riku said, crossing his arms, "it's just wasting our time."

Kairi's face twisted into a pout and she glared in Riku's direction. Man, as sweet as Kairi was, her glare could easily break the strongest man down. "It's important because it's common courtesy, Riku. She gave us her name, yet she'll never know ours, unless we find her."

"That's true, Riku," I said, looking to him, "I mean, Kairi knows everything about courtesy; she is a princess after all." I nudged Kairi in the arms and winked at her, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Plus, she obviously lives here; maybe she can help us find what we're looking for." That's my Kairi, always looking on the bright side.

"Well yeah, but I'm sure there are plenty other people that could help us," Riku fired back.

"I don't know, she seemed kinda…" I started off.

"Crazy? I mean she shoved me so close to the water, yelled at me for trying to kill a heartless, let alone named that heartless." Riku had a point.

"Well yes, but I was going to say…"

"Helpful. She saved us. For all we know, had we killed Gyzmo, we could have been dead ourselves!" Kairi also had a point. While Kairi and Riku continued fighting on rather to search for Cadance or not, I took a look around the area of the tree trunk. I put my ear against the bark and knocked three times. It sounded like a tree, not like something a person could just run through. I got down on my hands and knees and began crawling around the trunk of the tree. Maybe there was a switch or something that opened a door of some sort. That's when it caught my eye.

It was nothing too complicated, just a piece of string that was tied at the end so it made a loop. I picked the loop up in my hands and examined it, then gave it a nice tug. I hadn't noticed that Kairi was leaning on the tree, until she let out a yelp and disappeared.

"Sora, what did you just do?" Riku exclaimed to me.

"I-I-I don't know," I managed to stammer out, looking at the spot where Kairi had just been. I pulled the sting again and a space in the tree opened up. "Well, I guess we have to go in." I said looking down the hole, there's no telling where it led to. I decided to take a leap of faith and jump down the tree before Riku had a chance.

I was completely wonder stuck by what was going on. I was in a tube slide, going about 50 miles per hour. Lights were flashing by so fast. I went down for some time, then the slide took a sharp left, and then began going up. Once I felt as if I was going to die by the speed I was going at, the tube went down for a moment, and then spit me out. I was completely out of it until some heavy object fell on me with a loud 'oomf.'

"Thanks for being there for me, Sora," Riku laughed from the top of me, patting my hair. I shimmied a little to get him off of me, then stood up and dusted myself off. Looking around the place, I noticed we were in like… a living room or something. What was strange though, was that the walls weren't made of well… walls. They were made of … dirt or something. Yet there was a t.v in the room, and there was a couch and a recliner chair also. It reminded me a lot of the hang out in Twilight Town/the cave from home. The furniture from Twilight Town, and the walls were like the cave.

"Do you think we're underground?" Kairi said, putting a hand on the dirt wall and examining it.

"You're in the mountain," a voice said from behind us. Cadance was standing in what looked like a man made doorway into a kitchen. At the sight of the kitchen my stomach growled. Cadance must have heard it and her face broke into a small smile. "You must be hungry." She turned into the kitchen and motioned for us to follow her.

I looked to my two best friends and shrugged. Hey, I'm not turning down food. I walked into the kitchen, and Kairi followed while Riku kept his place in the room.

"So whaddaya like to eat?" Cadance asked leaning into the fridge.

"Anything ya got really. I could eat an elephant right now," I said patting my stomach to make it stop growling. I looked around at the furniture in the room then something hit me. Well, not literally. "Say, how do ya have all this stuff in here."

She stiffened for a second then laughed it off. "Oh, ya know. Science and what not," she replied flicking a hand in the air. "Are rice balls good?"

Rice balls were more than good. They were perfect. I sent her two thumbs up and she let out a little chuckle. She put around twenty rice balls on a plate and placed them on the table. I immediately started chowing down, while Kairi grabbed one and took little nibbles. Cadance took a seat at one of the six chairs at the kitchen table and clasped her hands together.

"I have to say I'm happy that you found me," she said, making me slow down with the grub. "I wanted to apologize for the way we… met."

"Yeah, what's up with that by the way? Heartless aren't really what I'd call a house hold pet." I said through a mouthful of rice.

She raised a brow at me as if I were the strangest man. "I guess by 'heartless' you mean what Gyzmo is. He's not really a pet, he's more an… experiment." She said causing me to raise a brow. At this time Riku had moved from his spot and sat next to me at the table. He also looked at her as if she were crazy. "No experiment of mine, necessarily, but my friend Cera. She's a scientist, and when those little guys showed up, she was so intrigued by them. She had myself and each of my friends capture one and she studied how they reacted to each of us. Gyzmo's been around for two years I'd say. He's never hurt a fly. None of them have. That's why they made it against the law to cause any harm to them. Killing them would be like killing another human around here. So yeah, you're welcome for saving your butt." She winked at Riku.

"That's just weird," Riku replied, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.

"What's weird," she said poking at a rice ball, "is that you three are on my property, and I don't even know your names."

"Right," Kairi said blushing a bit. How cute. "I'm Kairi."

"Sora," I waved to her.

"..Riku," he said avoiding any eye contact with her.

"Riiiiiight," Cadance said. "So what are you three doing here anyway," she put her elbows onto the table and rested her head on her hands.

"Well, we're looking for someone," I replied scratching the back of my head.

"Oh! I can help you! I know everyone here! Who ya looking for." She asked, perking her head up.

Riku laughed and Kairi fiddled with a piece of her head. "About that… well, we're not really sure. Something about a marking?" This seemed to catch her attention even more.

"You're looking for The Marked?" She asked, tiliting her head. I shrugged. Were we looking for them? I guess so, being that that was all we had on who we were looking for. "Heh, well a good majority of them aren't exactly here right now, and I have no clue when they will be. They've been gone for about a year now."

"Well that's just great," Riku said, rolling his eyes yet again.

"Well thanks any-" Kairi said before getting cut off from a new voice.

"Kay?!" It called. "You in here?" The voice made Cadance's face break into a huge smile.

"I guess you three came here on a good day." She said rising from her seat and running into the other room.


	3. Welcome Home

_One year ago_

I sat on the beach, my favorite place which was slowly fading into nothing. The crystal clear water was now dark and murky. My home was slowly being taken into the darkness, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Maybe there was nothing I could do to stop the darkness, but my friends would be leaving at any moment to find a way to save our little world. Yes, they could be leaving right now and here I was sitting on the beach… alone. I couldn't do it though, I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye. I know, I'm pathetic.

I couldn't bear to think about it. They'd all be leaving, risking their lives for our world, and there was a possibility that they would never be coming back. Their sacrifice would be for nothing. I couldn't help but wish that I was older, the same age as the rest of them, so that I could go out and risk my life instead of staying back and praying that they return home safe. Only one more year.

Tomorrow was the day of my seventeenth birthday. One year from tomorrow I would be allowed to leave this world and help be rid the darkness. Once I turned eighteen I would join my friends.

"Hey you," an all too familiar voice called breaking me out of my thoughts. I was suddenly aware of the presence of five others, staring at me intently. I stood up from my spot on the beach and wiped off my pink skirt before turning around to face the five of them.

"You didn't really think we were going to leave without saying goodbye to you, did you?" called Briant from his spot on the beach. His comment caused the other four to chuckle. He stood there along with Ryan, Leonard, Cera, and Harley. All five of them in their armor, ready to leave.

"I'm not really one for goodbyes," I called back.

"Oh, Kay, don't be such a baby," Ryan said, walking up to me and ruffling my hair. I rolled my eyes at his comment, because next to him, I was the baby. I was the youngest of the group, being one day away from seventeen. Ryan and Cera were 18, Harley and Briant 19, and Leonard was 20.

"It's not fair," I said, pouting and stomping my foot, okay, maybe I was a bit childish. "Can't you at least wait one year? I can come with you! Plus you'll be able to train more! You'll be stronger! And you'll have another hand! We'll have a better chance!"

"Cadance, the longer we wait the more our land goes into the darkness, it's too risky," Cera came up and rested a small hand on my shoulder.

"But it's not fair!" I called out. I felt tears brimming around my eyes. "It's my birthday!"

"You're acting more your shoe size then your age," I heard Harley mumble to the right of me.

"and that's why we got you this," Briant said, ignoring his twins comment. Briant handed me a little blue box with a white ribbon holding it closed. I eyed all of them cautiously, letting them know that presents wouldn't silence me. I tugged at the little ribbon, causing it to become loose so that I could now open the box.

What was inside the box made my eyes grow wide. Inside was a gold charm bracelet that held six gold charms. Each charm had a carving of each of my friends marking, except for one.

"One year from now, when your mark shows, I'll come back and we'll carve it in together," Ryan explained to me as he clasped the bracelet around my wrist. The bracelet fit perfectly. I admired the way that Ry had been able to carve all the markings in such detail. "I promise," he added, holding both of my hands in his. I nodded as he locked his dark green eyes with mine.

I broke his grasp and locked my arms around his neck. I rested my chin on his shoulder and closed my eyes, taking in the moment. "Thank you," I managed to croak out as unwanted tears began to fall from my eyes.

"Hey, it's from all of us, not just Ry," I opened my eyes and saw Briant standing directly in front of me with his arms crossed. I managed to let out a chuckle as I invited Briant into our hug. Briant and Ryan had always been the two of The Marked that I had been closest with. The two couldn't be any more opposite, appearance and attitude wise. Ryan had dark blonde hair that was always swept to the right as if it were being blown by the wind, dark green eyes, and extremely tanned skin, despite the lack of sun. Briant, on the other hand, had extremely dark hair that he always had styled in short spikes, grey eyes, almost like a wolf, and pale skin. Briant was always a kidder, the two of us were always joking around, pranking everyone else. Ryan was extremely caring, if you ever needed him, whether he knew you or not, he was always there for you. I couldn't love the two of them anymore.

All of a sudden, our huddle got tighter as Harley, Leo, and Cera joined in. "Just… promise me you won't lose sight of right and wrong. Keep your heart strong, don't let this darkness take you over, and in a years' time I'll find you, and we'll all be together again. We'll fulfill our prophecies, and we'll go back to living life the way things were. Promise?" I asked breaking the hug and looking at all five of them.

"Promise," Cera was the first to speak, as she put her hand in the middle of our little circle.

"Yeah, promise," Briant said, adding his hand into the circle.

"Yeah," Harley followed her brother's lead. Leo followed and put his hand in the circle. He nodded at all of us, he was never really one for words.

"We'll all be together before you know it," Ry said, adding his hand to the pile, "promise."

"Good," I replied, adding my hand to the pile. I looked around at all of my friends; Cera, the scholar, Briant, the leader, Harley, the healer, Leonard, the fighter, and Ryan, the hunter. Then there was me. Who knew that I was destined for? Would I be great like my friends? Or would I be taken into the darkness with the rest of our world. "See ya soon," I said, wiping a stray tear from my eye. Then in a flash, they were all gone. I was alone again.

_Happy birthday._

One year later

"You're back!" I cried as I threw my arms around the muscular boy. "I can't believe it!"

"I promised you, didn't I?" Ry laughed as he wrapped his arms around my waist. He'd grown, about two inches more than when he had left. He'd also gotten some more muscle. Ry was never really muscle-y, compared to Briant and Leo.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked, noticing that Ry and I were the only two in the room.

He hesitated for a moment before starting. "As soon as we left we were attacked and separated. I haven't seen them since. I've been looking for them like crazy, but there are so many worlds out there, it's nearly impossible."

I felt tears begin to sting my eyes again as I buried my head in Ry's chest. "It's not supposed to be this away!" I cried, pounding my fist onto his chest.

"I know, I know," he said soothingly, stroking my hair, "things got out of our control, it's not-" Suddenly Ryan stiffened and in one swift move I was standing behind him. Ryan stood defensively; ready to attack the next thing that moved. That's when I remembered the other three presences in the room, the three visitors that Ryan was unaware of. The three of them stood in the doorway, slightly awkward. I felt my face flush. Had they seen the whole conversation between Ryan and I? They saw me weak, and they haven't even known me for more than a day.

"Ry…" I said reaching my hand out trying to calm my friend, but he shrugged me right off.

"Who are you?" Ryan asked through clenched teeth. There was something different about him. I'd never seen him so angry.

"Ry, they need our"

"Quiet," Ryan said to me, "they can speak for themselves."

"Ryan, they"

"I SAID QUIET," Ryan yelled to me. I felt my jaw drop, but I quickly snapped it shut, not wanting to feel vulnerable. In all the years I've known Ryan, never once had he yelled at me. Not even when we were children. "Seriously, Mona obviously hasn't worked on your manners while we've been gone."

In that moment, I knew the boy standing in front of me was not the same that had left me just a year ago.


End file.
